Is aging in place at Wintergreen practical?
A new group has organized to try to find some answers to this complex question
The Here to Stay in Wintergreen meeting at Tuckahoe Clubhouse was standing-room-only.
“Year before last, I gave a group of my Wintergreen friends a copy of this book,” Kaye Pietrowicz said as she opened the Here to Stay Wintergreen meeting at Tuckahoe Clubhouse, holding up Being Mortal by Arul Gawande.
“It made us all realize how much we rely on our friends. And we also all realized how much we all love Wintergreen,” she said.
This started a conversation about “aging in place” at Wintergreen, Pietrowicz explained, which lead to the creation of an ad hoc group that started researching, visiting, and talking.
The group of 10 women who organized the afternoon meeting last Friday, many of whom have been active in the Wintergreen community, had named no formal leaders and had no bank account.
They did have, however, a lot of ideas, information, and options they wanted to share after months of meetings among themselves. They also had agreed on a name for their group (Here to Stay in Wintergreen) and set up an email address (atwintergreen@gmail.com) along with a page on the internet where people could sign up to an email list.
Thanks to arms-length support from the Wintergreen Property Owners Association along with the long-standing valley and mountain neighborhood associations, the group emailed an online survey on October 15, announcing at the same time their November 1 meeting to discuss the results of the survey. From the survey and at their meeting, they got the names of scores of people who said they wanted to know more.
At the end of their meeting, Linda Harrington outlined some "next steps.” Their plan is to hold several focus group meetings before the end of the year. They will also attempt to identify both key volunteers and people in the Wintergreen community who now need help in “aging in place.” Anyone interested in being a part of this process was encouraged to email the group.
Appropriately, the last speaker at the meeting came from the audience. A Wintergreen resident told a compelling story of the struggles she had faced caring for her 89-year-old husband who went from being healthy to ill, then very ill, in just months.
The founding members of the Here to Stay Wintergreen group are Karen Asher, Leah Davis, Barbara Gibb, Mary Gurr, Linda Harrington, Ika Joiner, Hilary Partridge, Mary Jo Russell, Kaye Pietrowicz, and Di Tonkins.
Mary Jo Russell talked about what might be done to make the Wintergreen community more “social” for its older residents. Her ideas included starting a coffee house, holding movie nights or getting people together to watch sports on TV. “What can we do to make this journey we’re all on fun?” she asked.
Kaye Pietrowicz opened the Here to Stay in Wintergreen meeting on November 1 by explaining how and why everyone had come together.
Hilary Partridge started her presentation saying, “Making all of this work is not going to be that easy.” She briefly outlined how there are several very different models others have developed for bringing together what’s needed to make communities a place where aging in place becomes practical for more people. She was among several of the speakers who said that the group was seeking legal guidance. Partridge also noted that, “There is a big range of potential costs of bringing in services.”
The group pointed to three organizations they viewed as examples that showed how service organizations in retirement communities can be very different:
Linda Harrington stressed that their group wanted to hear more from the members of the resort community and suggested that, “Perhaps there are some business professionals here or elsewhere we could work with to help us bring some of the services needed to Wintergreen.”
Karen Asher went over the results of the group’s survey of the Wintergreen community. Over 180 people had put their names on the group’s email system to get more information.
Leah Davis explained how there was need to look at all of the resources already in place at Wintergreen that might assist older residents of the resort community.